11 JULY 1914, Page 22

The Theory of Poetry in England. By R. P. Cowl.

(Macmillan and Co. 5s. net.)—This book should be very helpful to students of English poetry and criticism. It consists of a series of extracts from the writings of the chief

English critics of poetry, from Gascoigne,. Puttenham, and Sidney, through Dryden, Johnson, and Coleridge, to Matthew Arnold, Pater, and Swinburne. These extracts are carefully classified, and embody the leading doctrines " which may be said to interpret, if they cannot be said to have determined, the evolution of English poetry."